


The Bond Between Siblings

by NoOne0_o



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Misunderstandings, Sibling Love, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoOne0_o/pseuds/NoOne0_o
Summary: In which Jaime and Cersei have a (relatively) normal brother-sister relationship, but it doesn't keep others from jumping to conclusions.





	The Bond Between Siblings

Joanna Lannsiter watches her twins carefully. Something of their closeness makes her worry, and she hears the maids whisper of the twins sneaking into one another’s beds. But whenever she investigates, she finds them only laughing or sharing stories, building forts with their pillows and quilts or having imaginary sword fights.

She finds them wrestling more than once also, but she comes to understand her only fear ought to be for poor Jaime’s safety. It’s a game to him and war to Cersei, and more than once she has to step between them to stop biting and hair-pulling, only for Jaime after to cry, “Don’t _yell_ at her. I’m fine, I’m fine. See, mother?”

“Your sister needs to act more like a lady, Jaime."

Jaime looks perplexed, Cersei equally so — as if they cannot understand why one of them would have to act one way, the other another. Tywin, Cersei’s septa, Jaime’s maester, have certainly spoken to them of their different roles, but Joanna has an inkling half the time one twin attends the lessons of the other, or more probably that Cersei attends more than her share of both while Jaime shirks his own.

She does not explain quite yet. Instead she only says it is not proper for siblings to bite or pull hair.

“It’s childish,” says she, and both her proud lions bristle at the implication they might be children.

She laughs and tousles their hair, and tells them she is proud of them both.

…

Cersei knows why Father takes her to court. She even understands.

It does not mean she likes being away from Jaime.

When they are fifteen, she sees the opportunity for a solution and takes it. When he visits shortly after being knighted, she pulls him aside in the Red Keep and takes him out to the gardens, away from the listening ears she’s learned are ever-present. He’s changed since she saw him last, is tall and handsome and everything a knight ought to be, and it makes pride swell in her chest that he is her brother.

Envy accompanies it. But though she thinks still she _ought_ to have been a boy, it is not Jaime’s fault that was not the case. She does not blame him, but the gods.

“I do not like the look in your eyes, sweet sister,” Jaime says. “Are you plotting? Scheming?”

“Do you know Father plans to wed you to Lysa Tully?” Cersei says to begin with, for she knows how little Jaime thinks of being a lord or a husband; his thoughts are filled with hopes for knightly deeds, and she has jested in letters his ideal bride would not be any lady of Westeros, but a sword or a lance or perhaps a horse.

As she expects, he scowls at the reminder. “I visited Riverrun. She was too scared to speak two words to me in order. The older sister, she I might’ve liked, but Brandon Stark has gotten her.”

“What if you didn’t marry?” Cersei says. “What if you were able to come to the Red Keep, and be with me? If you’d never have to be a lord, and only ever had to worry about being a knight?”

Jaime stills. “Speak plainly, sister.”

“There’s an opening in the Kingsguard. I might know some ears to whisper into.”

“Sister, I do not wish to wed Lysa Tully. That does not mean I _never_ wish to wed. Father would be furious, and-”

“You’d get to serve with Ser Arthur and Ser Barristan and all those other knights you go on, and on about…”

He bites his lip.

Cersei leans closer. “If you’re worried you’ll die a maid, do not be. I heard Lady Ashara mention just the other day Ser Lewyn has a paramour, and no one says a thing of it.  You’d just have to be discreet. You can do that, can’t you, brother?”

“That wasn’t what I was worried about,” he protests. “What of Tyrion? Of Father?”

She peers up at him. “What of _me_? Am I to go on without my brother?”

That snags him.

“Very well — but only because I miss you as well, sister.”

…

He does not see Cersei during the entirety of Aerys’s reign. He thinks he should resent her for pushing and prodding him into the cloak and leaving him in King’s Landing to suffer the Mad King alone, to be branded a Kingslayer alone, but he knows it is not her fault, and he cannot be angry.

Any resentment he does have evaporates when he goes to Casterly Rock as part of the honor guard that will bring Cersei to King’s Landing for her wedding. Heedless of decorum, he flies to her when he sees her, wrapping her in an embrace.

“Sister,” says he. “Sister. I have missed you.”

He’s felt alone, so incredibly alone these last two years. This is the first time since he has felt the warmth of family, of support, of connection. _Now she will be with me in King_ _’s Landing always._

She pulls away, and says to him, “Do not look sad. We’ll never be apart again.” She looks shaken herself, and to hide it, puts on a smile. “Tell me of King Robert. I’ve seen him, and I am not sure whether to be impressed or apprehensive.”

“I suppose women think he’s handsome,” says Jaime.

“But?”

He does not want her marriage off on a bad foot when Robert might not be what Jaime fears.

“You must see for yourself. It might be you like him.”

He hopes it is true as he says it. His sister deserves a good husband.

…

Robert is a brute and a drunk, and Cersei has not been married for him for half a year when she decides she will not have his children. She announces this to Jaime, who has as little love for the king as Cersei does.

“Then have careful affairs,” he says, shrugging. “Find someone with golden hair and green eyes, or black hair and blue eyes, and pop out their child, and no one will know the difference. Though I will advise against trying to seduce Lord Stannis. _He_ has no mind for anything except justice and duty, and he’d have your head under a chopping block before you could say a word.”

“Stannis?” Cersei says, laughing. “I do not want Stannis. That cousin, of Mother’s oldest brother — he’s rather handsome, isn’t he?”

“Cleos?”

“Cleos is Genna’s,” Cersei protests. “He’s brown hair and looks like a Frey.”

“There are so damned many. How am I to know who’s who? Send for whichever one you’re speaking of, make him a cup-bearer or servant or some such, and I’m sure you’d have him in your bed with a few sweet words. You are pretty enough.”

“And _you_ are a poor Kingsguard,” Cersei chides. She tugs his hair as she had when they were younger, so that the words do not have sting. “Encouraging your queen to cheat on poor Robert.”

“Poor Robert indeed,” he says, in such a way she wonders if he will not slay another king eventually. _It would be no great loss. As long as I have an heir first._

She puts a hand on his arm. “Keep calm, dear brother. I can handle Robert for now.” She is not always so sure, but she is a lioness, and she will not let a drunken oaf cow her.

Her words reassure Jaime at least, but though his rising spite ebbs, it cools into deadly calm. He leans forward to look her in the eye, meeting her gaze with grim promise. “If ever you cannot, know always I will protect you.”

…

Petyr is not sure at first what Jon Arryn and Stannis Baratheon are getting up to, snooping around, looking through whorehouses, but rarely does anyone do anything in King’s Landing he does not become aware of eventually. It takes only a little digging, a little thinking, and he realizes the nature of their search.

It’s all quite convenient. Lysa is angry already with the Hand for threatening to send away little Robert, and now he has scapegoats with a motive waiting to be found out.

He whispers a few words in silly, stupid Lysa’s ear. Tears are given, a Hand is killed — and later, a coded message is sent to Winterfell placing blame on the shoulders of the queen.

…

Jaime cannot stand the bleak North, no more than he can stomach dour Ned Stark’s snarls and glares. He begs his sister for her company, wanting only a short while to speak with his twin without facing Lord Stark's disapproval. She is equally as fed up with the whole experience, and they retreat together to an old tower certainly no one uses.

“I should have brought Lancel,” Cersei says as she paces.

“You know,” says Jaime, “when you get older, your paramours ought to get older. He’s only a boy.”

“He’s sixteen. Old enough.” She ceases her back and forth and faces Jaime, offering a simper as if he’s no more than a fool boy to be caught in by a pretty pout. “Do you think I am getting old, brother?”

“I think he’s a timid little mouse who’s too full of himself. You ought to have better.”

“You’ve no right to speak ill of anyone else for arrogance, and I can decide who I want for myself. Lancel has his other uses, in any case.” She sprawls across a chair. “I am _lonely_ here, and Robert only goes on about his poor Lyanna. I do not like how the Starks look at us either.”

“Like we’re scheming,” Jaime agrees, having seen it himself. “I’m particularly offended on my own behalf. When have _I_ ever schemed? You’re the one who wishes me to be Hand, and Warden of the East, and probably _king_ eventually, gods forbid.”

She snorts. “Are you daft? We’d have to wed for you to be king, and we are not Targaryens. As for the rest, I cannot help it that I want the best for you. Gods know you’d be a better Hand than Stark-”

A noise, followed by a cry sounds outside.

Jaime frowns, but he rushes to the window — to find a child scrambling for purchase, his hands clutching a ledge near the window. Jaime hauls him in, and stares at the Stark child incredulously.

“Are you _spying_?” He looks at Cersei and jabs a finger at the boy. “Sister, Ned Stark is sending his children to spy.” _I ought to push him out. Then he_ _’ll be able to say nothing at all._

Cersei rolls her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Come here, boy. It’s alright.” She glares Jaime into letting the child go. “It’s not spying. I’ve heard Lady Stark complain about his climbing. Are you so paranoid, brother?” She studies the child, and there’s a touch of softness in her eyes. Cersei likes children, for the most part. Jaime does not mind them himself, and even likes his nephews and niece. But this bewildered looking Stark child seems to him a troublesome pest.

But he holds his tongue, lets Cersei fluff the child’s hair in a vaguely threatening manner before she sends him off.

“He’ll run and tell his father we’re planning to kill him,” Jaime informs her.

“All he would’ve heard was your complaining. I do not think he has anything to tell. If he does, what will come of it? They have no proof of anything.”

Cersei is the more cautious of the two. If she thinks nothing will come of it, no doubt she is correct.

“Very well,” Jaime says. “I suppose it _isn_ _’t_ so uncommon for siblings to vent to one another every now and again. Yes, you’re right. Nothing ought to come of this.”

…

Joffrey Baratheon is nothing like Robert. Ned had not understood the implications of this until Sansa says it aloud for him to hear, defending the placid, amiable if slightly spoiled boy from Arya’s derision.

He stares at the book he’d borrowed from Pycelle, thinks upon the letter Catelyn had received from Lysa.

 _It can_ _’t be,_ he thinks, but can come up with no other explanation.

…

Cersei is excited when Lord Stark requests to visit her in the godswood. She’s begun to find the Northman attractive, in his rough-edged way. He is a good man in a way few are anymore, that even her dearest brother is not, and there’s something endearing about the quality. She’d not approached him, not willing to risk him going to Robert about it, but she has half a hope he may be extending a hand to her.

She still worries he does not trust her; that he is investigating some suspicion or another of his regarding she and her family, but she does not think anyone could know of the true parentage of the children; the father has long since been married and left King’s Landing, and is now in the Westerlands with some nonentity of a woman. There is no way to draw a connection.

 _It might be about Lancel,_ she fears, but she’s gone to her cousin but twice since they returned from Winterfell.

She can think of nothing else it might be.

Stark puts a hand to where Robert had struck her not so long before. “Has he done this before?”

“Once or twice. Never on my face. Jaime would have killed him, even if it meant his own life.” She thinks of her brother, of sweet Jaime who cares for her more than he does himself. It’s likely fortunate he is away, for he’d have lashed out at Robert in an instant if he’d seen the bruise. But Tyrion had written him from the north, claiming Lysa Arryn has been spreading rumors about them to Lady Stark, and he’d run off after the Imp without a heed to Cersei’s cautions.

She longs for him to return, and it is that thought in part which prompts her to add, “My brother is worth a hundred of your friend.”

“Your brother?” says Ned. “Or your lover?”

She is sure at first she misheard him. But he is looking at her serious as ever.

All the trouble stirring lately, the way the game of thrones is becoming increasingly dangerous, Cersei has scarce smiled at all over these past months. Now she laughs. She bends in half and laughs as she doesn’t know she has in her life. The gravity, the utter seriousness with which Ned places the question at her feet is so absurd there is nothing else she can do.

He is so thrown off by her response, so embarrassed — his cheeks flush an adorable red — he does not follow up on whatever logic led him to think her children were not Robert’s, and Cersei cannot even bring herself to punish him his snooping, he has amused her so throughly. _Me? And Jaime?_

He takes his family back to Winterfell within a fortnight.

…

“Lysa Arryn told Catelyn Stark we were fucking,” Jaime says upon his return. “She cornered poor Tyrion when he passed through Winterfell and tried to interrogate him about some grand plot of ours to take over the kingdoms. That boy you let go free told her something of our talk before he came south, which she thought corroborated it. She had been keeping Tyrion hostage, in case war broke out. Because she thought we were _fucking._ Where do people come up with this nonsense?”

“Ned Stark accused me of the same,” Cersei says, and though her voice is thick with mirth, her eyes have lit with suspicion. “Brother, it seems someone is trying to plot against us.”

“I do not think Lysa Arryn is smart enough. But-” He stops. “Lady Catelyn mentioned Petyr Baelish. She used his word as further _proof_ of our wrongdoing; Lysa had brought his name into it.”

“It’s Lysa Arryn who urged the Hand to get him appointed Master of Coin,” Cersei recalls. “I’d tried to convince Robert to appoint Uncle Kevan, and he told me he already had a man, that Jon’s wife vouched for him… Jaime, my knight?”

“You need not even ask.”

…

Jaime has never claimed to be subtle. He does not need to be. The truth of it is, no one really cares about Petyr Baelish, and getting rid of him is simple as ensuring he comes across him in a dark hall at a late hour. He yanks the man by the arm, shoves him into a wall, and slits his throat from behind.

Jaime makes a noise of disgust as he tosses the body aside and continues on his way.

 _Fucking my sister,_ thinks he, shaking his head.

For having a reputation for intelligence, the man had certainly been an idiot.

…

 

 

 


End file.
